New Tools for Online Teaching. Agenda/Topics. Key Themes. Introduction. Karen Belfer Jeff Miller

Transcription

1 New Tools for Online Teaching Karen Belfer Jeff Miller Distance Education & Technology University of British Columbia 1 Agenda/Topics Introduction LOs at UBC Social Software eportfolios Implementation Issues Strategies for success 2 Key Themes Technology best transforms teaching and learning when it facilitates learning processes rather than merely delivers content Students can be producers of knowledge, not just consumers of content Communities of Practice build best practices Faculty buy-in is far more effective in creating change than buy-out of their time 3 University of British Columbia Dual Mode Institution students, enrollments through Distance Education faculty/8.000 staff 12 Faculties Introduction Distance Education & Technology 4

2 Incubating new learning technologies at UBC Office of Learning Technologies communities of practice, learning objects, eportfolios, emerging technologies, and enterprise-level e- learning systems site for low-risk incubation of emerging technologies, evaluation of pilot systems and integration to enterprise level systems 5 6 Learning Objects cost effective reusable/ interoperable content can be customized for individual learners Standards make sharing and integration easy 7 LOs paradoxes specifications and applications that are truly pedagogically neutral cannot also be pedagogically relevant. -- Norm Friesen the smaller designers create their learning objects, the more reusable those objects will be. On the other hand, the smaller learning objects are, the more likely it is that only humans will be able to assemble them into meaningful instruction. The supposed economic advantage of reusable learning objects has evaporated. -- David Wiley 8

3 LOs Faculty Responses "I get mad every time I use somebody else's canned software." "Taking modules, and expecting them to assemble themselves into a smooth artful flow, is unrealistic." "I need more fine-grained resources that can be manipulated in divergent ways." 9 Faculty response 10 From LOs to Social Software A collection of mostly free, open source applications that build upon XML metadata as well as LO values relating to reuse, discovery and interoperability. Facilitate communication and publication between individuals or groups, and often involve creative ways to represent presence, interaction and creative interfaces for viewing information. Wikis, Weblogs, RSS feeds/news Aggregators, Photostreams, Social Bookmarking, etc. 11 Course premised on the notion that writing is a technology How do developing technologies for writing (scroll, codex, hypermedia) modify human orientation to information? Has been offered 3 times, each time with 40 students. 12

4 Highly constructivist course: students produce content and knowledge in collaboration with one another Multiple writing environments: asynchronous forums, community web, social software 13 From Push to Pull Faculty members, students and staff have taken to these tools with a great deal of enthusiasm We don t have to try to sell them on the benefits of Social Software: they seem to be buying into it because they are finding useful tools that help them create effective constructivist learning processes (or to organize a camping trip...) 14 eportfolios another technology, but one based on a well established methodology from social to individual constructivism: in most cases it is a very personal activity 15 what are portfolios Mirror Map Sonnet 16

5 Reflection Student s Reflection The ability to reflect upon the past and the ability to learn from past mistakes leads to exceptional growth. I learned how to reflect better through repeated writings of journal entries and feedback from my instructors. At the beginning of the course, I struggled with reflections and expressing how or why I felt a certain way. You also write about a lot negative feelings. How can the negative experiences be positive? (Feedback in Iwebfolio, October 23). Not explaining my feelings on paper meant that I had not thought about what kind of feelings I was dealing with, and I was not making an effort to turn challenges into strengths. Taking my instructor s advice, I reflected on my feelings more and more 17 Social Dialogue AGSC The most challenging piece was teaching students how to reflect. AGSC496 Instructors 18 Benefits of eportfolios Student Meta-cognition Self-regulation Transfer learning Empowerment Faculty Authentic Context rich Personalized learning 19 Motivation Extrinsic Mixed Intrinsic Purpose Content Process Content Process Content Learner control Helen Barrett (2004). 20

6 21 ETEC533: Technology in Mathematics and Science Classroom How do use and develop technologies than enhance the teaching and learning of science and mathematics? 22 Students reflect on their own assumptions about the use of technology for teaching and learning Students reflect on the impact pf the use of current technologies in the teaching of science and mathematics Students collaborate in the Design of Technology-Enhanced Learning Experiences 23 eportfolios Technology Dedicated and undedicated systems Social Software Vendor and Open Source Implementation Issues 24

7 eportfolios What is the story about implementation UBC Projects Community of practice Buy in - Adoption Transformation of teaching and learning 25 Management of e-learning: development, delivery, implementation Technology learning curve and cost structure is low and ease of use is high. Not always easy to scale into enterprise level applications Intellectual Property: copyright, copyleft, creative commons BC Commons/Creative Commons 26 What we ve learned Technology best transforms teaching and learning when it facilitates learning processes rather than merely delivers content Students can be producers of knowledge, not just consumers of content Communities of Practice build best practices Faculty buy-in is far more effective in creating change than buy-out of their time 27 New Tools for Online Teaching karen.belfer@ubc.ca jeff.miller@ubc.ca Distance Education & Technology University of British Columbia 28

8 29